The Day of Atonement For Hosts

You may remember that last Thursday was Rosh Hashanah, the start of the High Holy Days, the most religious time of the year for jews.

I’m sure it’s not something you would normally remember but seeing as I wrote a post about it hopefully the concept is still rattling around in your brain.

Well tonight at sundown is the start of Yom Kippur, the end of the High Holy Days and the single most important day of the year in my religion.

We go to temple for a service that is essentially our last plea for forgiveness and attempt to atone for our sins of the previous year before The Book of Life, which is where everything that will happen in the coming year is already written down, is sealed.

During the service there are several prayers that literally ask forgiveness for a laundry list of sins. Anything bad you can think of is probably covered on these lists.

Which got me to thinking, if airtalent had to go to temple and pray to be sealed in Arbitron’s Book of Ratings for the coming year what are the sins that would be on those lists?

Here’s what I came up with:

For saying your name in EVERY break.

For introducing anyone as “the lovely and talented…”

For ever flirting with someone who calls the request line, especially if you work nights or overnights.

For starting a break with a pun based on the title of the last song you played. That goes double if the pun involved “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” by the Clash.

For saying “on your Friday afternoon” or referring to any other time and day as being mine.

For not being up-to-date on the latest news.

For regurgitating the facts of a news story without any unique observation to add.

For not being at least familiar with the most popular TV shows, movies and music that your audience cares about.

For thinking the listeners care about what you did over the weekend, what you bought at the grocery store or any other mundane detail of your life.

For putting the request lines on busy for hours at a time to be lazy instead of talking to your audience.

For whining on the air about how hard your job is while your audience is actually working for a living.

For bragging on the air about how great your job is while your audience is actually working for a living.

For taking your audience for granted.

For taking your producer, call screener or intern for granted.

For being an egotistical, prima dona, pain in the ass when your ratings aren’t good.

For being an egotistical, prima dona, pain in the ass when your ratings are good.

Now, just say this with me, “For all these sins O’ lord of ratings, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.”

Amen!

PS: If you have any sins to add to the list please post a comment here or on Facebook. I’m sure this list could be a lot longer.